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Aperture Science Sentry Turret
The Aperture Science Sentry Turret, or simply known as sentries or turrets, is a Personality Construct-based gun platform used throughout the Aperture Science Enrichment Center in Portal and Portal 2. The Turrets are not only important testing track obstacles, but are also used to protect restricted areas of the facility as well as in the testing of Military Androids and the Portal Device. Overview The Aperture Sentry Turret has a single red eye, a sleek appearance, and predominately white color scheme which is common in most Aperture Science technology. Sentry Turrets are commonly seen serving as guards in the maintenance areas of the Enrichment Center, and during testing as an obstacle to the Test Subject. Sentry Turrets often speak in a sweet child-like, artificial voice similar to GLaDOS and a lavatory bowl within the Enrichment Center. They have a strangely polite demeanor, which is in direct contrast with their deadly behavior. They will even forgive Chell for knocking them over. In one scene in Portal 2, an Oracle Turret is seen stuck inside the Aperture Science Pipe Network, who attempts to get Chell and Wheatley's attention. At Wheatley's encouragement, Chell ignores it, but the Sentry Turret politely says "thanks anyway" with a hint of shattered hopes. The Sentry Turrets are armed with two dual machine guns, which can only be armed once a target comes within visual sight. Upon visual acquisition of the target, the Sentry Turret will come to full alert, and the machine guns will emerge. They will begin to fire at any visible targets (usually Test Subjects or intruders). When no targets are in visual range, the Sentry will scan the area in a sweeping motion with its laser targeting beam. Upon seeing that there are no more targets, the Sentry Turret will return to sleep mode after three seconds. These weapons, the machine guns, along with its antenna are normally hidden inside the body, during the Turret's "sleep mode". Aperture-Brand Resolution Pellets, the bullets for a Sentry Turret's guns, are simply dumped into its hollow body, called the Shell Redistribution Chamber; this allows for an unusually large supply of ammunition for such a small device. Aperture-Brand Resolution Pellets are the only type of ammunition that is recommended for use with a Sentry Turret. In addition, bullets are not "fired" in the traditional sense. They are propelled, shell and all, with a spring-loaded mechanism called the Projectile Acceleration Cylinder, which is guarded by the Aperture Turret External Barrel. The Personality Core of the Sentry Turret is located within the outer shell, right above the guns. It is fitted with a Fire/No Fire Incident Resolution Chip, presumably to help the Turret distinguish when or when not to fire, an Empathy Generator and an Empathy Suppressor. Apparently, the Empathy Suppressor is of greater influence, as simply standing near a Sentry Turret may cause its Empathy Suppressor to accidentally activate, greatly reducing the Sentry Turret's feelings of empathy toward its foe. The consumer version of the Sentry Turret is available in hundreds of different designer patterns and colors, including "Forest" and "Desert", as well as "Table" and "Evening at the Improv", which were named on the spot by Cave Johnson ("What idiot picked this?"). Detailed in a Portal comic strip, the inception of the Sentry's strange disposition for singing and using melodious tones came from Aperture Science consumer product testers using the weapon as a possible use for protecting children from criminals. The test is a success but the baby begins to cry every time so they decide to include soft tones and lullabies. The second test is then deemed a success with the sleeping child. Tactics Sentry Turrets, when idle, conceal their weapons under the two plates on either side of their body. When they spot a target it takes a moment to deploy its weapons to fire. A Sentry Turret's weapons are very powerful and are able to kill a human, such as Chell, after a few seconds of continuous fire. ATLAS and P-body, while sturdier than a human, still cannot endure lengthy sustained fire before falling apart. However, Sentry Turrets can be easily spotted by the visible laser beam emitted from their eye at all times, making it easier to avoid them. When knocked over, Sentry Turrets fire frantically in all directions before permanently deactivating. Like all other objects within the Enrichment Center, the Sentry Turret will disintegrate (and produce a soft "owowowowowow..." sound) if it passes through a Material Emancipation Grill. In Portal, the primary method of defeating the Turret is to disable it via knocking it over (echoing the method used in Half-Life 2). This can be accomplished in various ways: by picking it up from behind and dropping it in an odd position, knocking it over with a weighted cube, hitting it with another object (including another turret), shooting a portal at its feet, or directing a High Energy Pellet into it (the Pellet will not destroy the turret on impact, but it will impart enough force to knock it over). Portal 2 introduces two new means for the player to disable the Turrets. One is to direct a Thermal Discouragement Beam onto it (usually via a portal and/or Weighted Pivot Cube), causing it to heat up and explode. Another is to cover it in Repulsion Gel or Propulsion Gel (via the Perpetual Testing Initiative), causing it to bounce with increasing force until it either shatters or falls away. Trivia * In contrast to Portal, Portal 2 Sentry Turrets will not attempt to shoot at enemies if glass is between them, while still tracking the enemy with the laser pointer. A Hard Light Bridge will prevent the Turret from even detecting the enemy, making it go to sleep. * During Portal 2's chapter The Escape, Chell passes through the production line for the commercial version of the Aperture Science Sentry Turret. The developer commentary states that originally, they would have had the Sentry Turret built and boxed, then passed into a machine directly below. This machine would unbox and disassemble it, then recycling the parts, meaning that the Sentry Turrets are never actually shipped. They also would have included a massive pile of all the unrecycled packaging material, giving Aperture the most inefficient recycling system possible. * Some of the Sentry Turret's sounds were not used in the game, but can be found in Portal's Game Cache File, including "Hello" from Portal 2 teaser trailer and "Your business is appreciated," played when flushing the lavatory bowl in the Relaxation Vault. ** The original Portal trailer also featured the Sentry Turrets using the same alarm sound effects as the Combine Sentry Gun, except the word "Searching," spoken with slightly modified voice from the final version. This was not used in the final version of the game. *** In Portal 2, when Chell is ascending to the surface, the first stop involves four sentry turrets which do use the Combine Sentry Turret sound effects. *** The Turret Wife Serenade also contains samples of the alarm. * In Portal 2, Sentry Turrets will fire at Wheatley's monitors, which is vital to get the Smash TV achievement. * Two unusual, non-defective turrets appear in Portal 2. The first is the "Animal King," used as part of a display to demonstrate some kind of non-human force dominating humanity. It also plays the bass tones during the opera at the end of the game. The second is the Soprano Turret, which sings the opera. The Soprano Turret is a common reference in the opera; "It's not over until the fat lady sings", in that the game is not over until the "fat turret" sings. * The Sentry Turrets are powered by a compact fusion core as seen on the caseless Defective Turrets. * The turret box states that one of the blue turrets was bought on January 25, 2010 by a person with an unreadable name. The reference to Michael Jackson can be seen on the posters. * In Portal 2, turret boxes indicated that turrets inside are blue. However, the machines in Turret Manufacturing build and box white turrets. * Despite the fact that the bullets fired from the Aperture Science Turret are propelled using a spring, the guns produce a muzzle flash and a noise; this is unusual considering that there is no gunpowder, or explosive propellant being used. Achievements Gallery Portal File:Orientation Video 1 all testing elements.jpg|Turret as seen in the pre-release Orientation Video no. 1. File:Testchmb a 110027.JPG|Sentry Turrets in Test Chamber 16. File:Stored turrets1.jpg|Stored Sentry Turrets in the maintenance areas. File:Stored turrets2.jpg|Ditto. File:Turret ambush room.jpg|Sentry Turret during Chell's escape. File:Portal 2 PotatoFoolsDay ARG Unknown Personality Core-Based Bot.jpg|The Walking Turret Concept Art. File:Walking turret.JPG|Part of the Animex presentation, showing the Walking Turret moving about. File:Mobile Turret.jpg|Concept art for the "Mobile Turret" variant, using the standard Turret design, made for Portal 2. File:Walking turret side.JPG|Ditto, from the side. ''Portal 2'' Pre-release File:Turrets and i m a pc.jpg|March 2010 image of the Engineer's Sentry Turret being compared to the Aperture Science Sentry Turret, promoting the arrival of Steam on Mac, sent by Valve to MacNN. This references the "Get a Mac" campaign launched in 2006. File:Turret crib day poster.jpg|Informative poster illustrating the merits of using an Aperture Science Sentry Turret to ward off potential baby snatchers (day). File:Turret crib night.jpg|Ditto, night. File:08692436.580.png|ASCII art version of the "day" poster. File:Portal 2 turret slices.jpg|Informative poster. File:00781706.309.png|ASCII art version. File:Portal 2 turret slices2.jpg|Variant of the previous informative poster. File:Aerial faith plate poster.jpg|Informative poster of the Aerial Faith Plate. File:04907382.298.png|ASCII art version. File:Thermal discouragement beam poster.jpg|Informative poster of the Thermal Discouragement Beam. File:06928073.711.png|ASCII art version. File:Turret laser ruined chamber.jpg|An active turret outside. File:08404033.250.png|ASCII art version. Retail File:Sentry gun building 1.jpg|Building process. File:Sentry gun building 2.jpg|Ditto. File:Aperture turrets color.jpg|The different skins in which the Sentry Turret is available, as seen in the informational video Aperture Investment Opportunity #3: "Turrets". File:Sentry Turret inside.png|A diagram of the gun mechanisms. File:Boxed Turret.png|Boxed blue turret. File:Turret wife.jpg|The Soprano "Fat Lady" turret who sings the opera at the end. File:Portal2 2011-05-23 02-34-17-15.jpg|One of many remains of other Soprano Turrets nearing Test Shaft 09. See also * Oracle Turret * Defective Turret * Turret Opera * Animal King * Frankenturret List of appearances * Portal * ApertureScience.com * Portal: Still Alive * ''Portal'' ARG * ''PotatoFoolsDay'' ARG * Portal 2: Lab Rat * Portal 2 * The Final Hours of Portal 2 Video References External links * de:Geschützturm es:Torreta de Aperture Science ru:Автоматическая турель Aperture Science Category:Enemies Category:Portal Category:Portal 2 Category:Aperture Science weapons Category:Weapons Category:Sentry weapons Category:Aperture Science testing elements Category:Scott Klintworth designs Category:Aperture Science Sentry Turrets Category:Aperture Science robots